Guide to the Secure Configuration of Oracle Linux 7
Rules, Groups, and Values defined within the XCCDF Benchmark
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Configure auditd flush priority
The <code>auditd</code> service can be configured to synchronously write audit event data to disk. Add or correct the following line in <code>/etc/audit/auditd.conf</code> to ensure that audit even...Rule Medium Severity -
System Accounting with auditd
The <code>auditd</code> program can perform comprehensive monitoring of system activity. This section makes use of recommended configuration settings for specific policies or use cases. The rules i...Group -
GRUB2 bootloader configuration
During the boot process, the boot loader is responsible for starting the execution of the kernel and passing options to it. The boot loader allows for the selection of different kernels - possibly ...Group -
L1TF vulnerability mitigation
Defines the L1TF vulneratility mitigations to employ.Value -
MDS vulnerability mitigation
Defines the MDS vulneratility mitigation to employ.Value -
Confidence level on Hardware Random Number Generator
Defines the level of trust on the hardware random number generators available in the system and the percentage of entropy to credit.Value -
Spec Store Bypass Mitigation
This controls how the Speculative Store Bypass (SSB) vulnerability is mitigated.Value -
Disable Recovery Booting
Oracle Linux 7 systems support an "recovery boot" option that can be used to prevent services from being started. The <code>GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY</code> configuration option in <code>/etc/default/g...Rule Medium Severity -
IOMMU configuration directive
On x86 architecture supporting VT-d, the IOMMU manages the access control policy between the hardware devices and some of the system critical units such as the memory. To ensure that <code>iomm...Rule Unknown Severity -
Force kernel panic on uncorrected MCEs
A Machine Check Exception is an error generated by the CPU itdetects an error in itself, memory or I/O devices. These errors may be corrected and generate a check log entry, if an error cannot be c...Rule Medium Severity -
Ensure SMEP is not disabled during boot
The SMEP is used to prevent the supervisor mode from executing user space code, it is enabled by default since Linux kernel 3.0. But it could be disabled through kernel boot parameters. Ensure tha...Rule Medium Severity -
Configure the confidence in TPM for entropy
The TPM security chip that is available in most modern systems has a hardware RNG. It is also used to feed the entropy pool, but generally not credited entropy. Use <code>rng_core.default_quality<...Rule Low Severity -
Configure Speculative Store Bypass Mitigation
Certain CPUs are vulnerable to an exploit against a common wide industry wide performance optimization known as Speculative Store Bypass (SSB). In such cases, recent stores to the same memory loca...Rule Medium Severity -
Enforce Spectre v2 mitigation
Spectre V2 is an indirect branch poisoning attack that can lead to data leakage. An exploit for Spectre V2 tricks the indirect branch predictor into executing code from a future indirect branch cho...Rule High Severity -
Disable vsyscalls
To disable use of virtual syscalls, add the argument <code>vsyscall=none</code> to the default GRUB 2 command line for the Linux operating system. To ensure that <code>vsyscall=none</code> is added...Rule Medium Severity -
Non-UEFI GRUB2 bootloader configuration
Non-UEFI GRUB2 bootloader configurationGroup -
Verify /boot/grub2/grub.cfg Group Ownership
The file <code>/boot/grub2/grub.cfg</code> should be group-owned by the <code>root</code> group to prevent destruction or modification of the file. To properly set the group owner of <code>/boot/g...Rule Medium Severity -
Verify /boot/grub2/grub.cfg User Ownership
The file <code>/boot/grub2/grub.cfg</code> should be owned by the <code>root</code> user to prevent destruction or modification of the file. To properly set the owner of <code>/boot/grub2/grub.cfg...Rule Medium Severity -
Verify /boot/grub2/user.cfg User Ownership
The file <code>/boot/grub2/user.cfg</code> should be owned by the <code>root</code> user to prevent reading or modification of the file. To properly set the owner of <code>/boot/grub2/user.cfg</co...Rule Medium Severity -
Verify /boot/grub2/grub.cfg Permissions
File permissions for <code>/boot/grub2/grub.cfg</code> should be set to 600. To properly set the permissions of <code>/boot/grub2/grub.cfg</code>, run the command: <pre>$ sudo chmod 600 /boot/grub...Rule Medium Severity -
Verify /boot/grub2/user.cfg Permissions
File permissions for <code>/boot/grub2/user.cfg</code> should be set to 600. To properly set the permissions of <code>/boot/grub2/user.cfg</code>, run the command: <pre>$ sudo chmod 600 /boot/grub...Rule Medium Severity -
Set the Boot Loader Admin Username to a Non-Default Value
The grub2 boot loader should have a superuser account and password protection enabled to protect boot-time settings. <br> <br> To maximize the protection, select a password-protected superu...Rule High Severity -
Boot Loader Is Not Installed On Removeable Media
The system must not allow removable media to be used as the boot loader. Remove alternate methods of booting the system from removable media. <code>usb0</code>, <code>cd</code>, <code>fd0</code>, e...Rule Medium Severity -
Set Boot Loader Password in grub2
The grub2 boot loader should have a superuser account and password protection enabled to protect boot-time settings. <br> <br> Since plaintext passwords are a security risk, generate a hash...Rule High Severity -
UEFI GRUB2 bootloader configuration
UEFI GRUB2 bootloader configurationGroup -
Verify the UEFI Boot Loader grub.cfg Group Ownership
The file <code>/boot/efi/EFI/redhat/grub.cfg</code> should be group-owned by the <code>root</code> group to prevent destruction or modification of the file. To properly set the group owner of <cod...Rule Medium Severity -
Verify the UEFI Boot Loader grub.cfg User Ownership
The file <code>/boot/efi/EFI/redhat/grub.cfg</code> should be owned by the <code>root</code> user to prevent destruction or modification of the file. To properly set the owner of <code>/boot/efi/E...Rule Medium Severity -
Verify /boot/efi/EFI/redhat/user.cfg User Ownership
The file <code>/boot/efi/EFI/redhat/user.cfg</code> should be owned by the <code>root</code> user to prevent reading or modification of the file. To properly set the owner of <code>/boot/efi/EFI/r...Rule Medium Severity -
Verify the UEFI Boot Loader grub.cfg Permissions
File permissions for <code>/boot/efi/EFI/redhat/grub.cfg</code> should be set to 700. To properly set the permissions of <code>/boot/efi/EFI/redhat/grub.cfg</code>, run the command: <pre>$ sudo ch...Rule Medium Severity -
Verify /boot/efi/EFI/redhat/user.cfg Permissions
File permissions for <code>/boot/efi/EFI/redhat/user.cfg</code> should be set to 600. To properly set the permissions of <code>/boot/efi/EFI/redhat/user.cfg</code>, run the command: <pre>$ sudo ch...Rule Medium Severity -
Set the UEFI Boot Loader Password
The grub2 boot loader should have a superuser account and password protection enabled to protect boot-time settings. <br> <br> Since plaintext passwords are a security risk, generate a hash...Rule High Severity -
Set the UEFI Boot Loader Password - systems prior to version 7.2
The grub2 boot loader should have a superuser account and password protection enabled to protect boot-time settings. <br> <br> Since plaintext passwords are a security risk, generate a hash...Rule High Severity -
Protect Random-Number Entropy Pool
The I/O operations of the Linux kernel block layer due to their inherently unpredictable execution times have been traditionally considered as a reliable source to contribute to random-number entro...Group -
Ensure Solid State Drives Do Not Contribute To Random-Number Entropy Pool
For each solid-state drive on the system, run:# echo 0 > /sys/block/DRIVE/queue/add_random
Rule Medium Severity -
Kernel Configuration
Contains rules that check the kernel configuration that was used to build it.Group -
Hash function for kernel module signing
The hash function to use when signing modules during kernel build process.Value -
Key and certificate for kernel module signing
The private key and certificate to use when signing modules during kernel build process. On systems where the OpenSSL ENGINE_pkcs11 is functional — a PKCS#11 URI as defined by RFC7512 In the latter...Value -
Kernel panic timeout
The time, in seconds, to wait until a reboot occurs. If the value is0the system never reboots. If the value is less than0the system reboots immediately.Value -
Do not allow ACPI methods to be inserted/replaced at run time
This debug facility allows ACPI AML methods to be inserted and/or replaced without rebooting the system. This configuration is available from kernel 3.0. The configuration that was used to build k...Rule Low Severity -
Disable kernel support for MISC binaries
Enabling <code>CONFIG_BINFMT_MISC</code> makes it possible to plug wrapper-driven binary formats into the kernel. This is specially useful for programs that need an interpreter to run like Java, Py...Rule Medium Severity -
Enable support for BUG()
Disabling this option eliminates support for BUG and WARN, reducing the size of your kernel image and potentially quietly ignoring numerous fatal conditions. You should only consider disabling this...Rule Medium Severity -
Disable compatibility with brk()
Enabling compatiliby with <code>brk()</code> allows legacy binaries to run (i.e. those linked against libc5). But this compatibility comes at the cost of not being able to randomize the heap placem...Rule Medium Severity -
Disable the 32-bit vDSO
Certain buggy versions of glibc (2.3.3) will crash if they are presented with a 32-bit vDSO that is not mapped at the address indicated in its segment table. Setting <code>CONFIG_COMPAT_VDSO</code>...Rule Low Severity -
Enable checks on credential management
Enable this to turn on some debug checking for credential management. The additional code keeps track of the number of pointers from task_structs to any given cred struct, and checks to see that th...Rule Low Severity -
Disable kernel debugfs
<code>debugfs</code> is a virtual file system that kernel developers use to put debugging files into. Enable this option to be able to read and write to these files. The configuration that was use...Rule Low Severity -
Enable checks on linked list manipulation
Enable this to turn on extended checks in the linked-list walking routines. The configuration that was used to build kernel is available at <code>/boot/config-*</code>. To check the configurat...Rule Low Severity -
Enable checks on notifier call chains
Enable this to turn on sanity checking for notifier call chains. This is most useful for kernel developers to make sure that modules properly unregister themselves from notifier chains. The config...Rule Low Severity -
Enable checks on scatter-gather (SG) table operations
Scatter-gather tables are mechanism used for high performance I/O on DMA devices. Enable this to turn on checks on scatter-gather tables. The configuration that was used to build kernel is availab...Rule Low Severity -
Disable /dev/kmem virtual device support
Disable support for the /dev/kmem device. The configuration that was used to build kernel is available at <code>/boot/config-*</code>. To check the configuration value for <code>CONFIG_DEVKMEM...Rule Low Severity -
Disable hibernation
Enable the suspend to disk (STD) functionality, which is usually called "hibernation" in user interfaces. STD checkpoints the system and powers it off; and restores that checkpoint on reboot. The ...Rule Medium Severity
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